Like John Gotti: How Trump keeps 'beating the government'

05 July 2024

Although Donald Trump is facing four criminal indictments and has been convicted on 34 criminal counts in one of them, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee —according to polls released after his June 27 debate with President Joe Biden — has a good chance of returning to the White House in 2025.

Biden trails Trump by 6 percent in polls released by the New York Times/Siena College and the Wall Street Journal in early July. A CBS News poll released on July 2 finds Trump ahead by 2 percent, although a Reuters poll conducted July 1 and 2 showed Biden and Trump in a tie.

The fate of those four criminal indictments is in question following the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial 6-3 immunity ruling in Trump v. the United States. In the decision, the Court's six GOP-appointed justices said that presidents enjoy "absolute immunity" from criminal prosecution for "official" acts but not for "unofficial" acts.

In an article published on July 5, Wall Street Journal reporters Aruna Viswanatha and Sadie Gurman emphasize that from a legal standpoint, Trump has — all things considered — had a streak of good luck recently.

"A year ago," the journalists explain, "the legal system seemed to be closing in on Donald Trump. Prosecutors painted a sweeping portrait of a president who allegedly tried to overturn the results of an election he knew he lost, hung on to classified documents he knew he should return and secretly paid off a porn star to keep quiet about an affair he knew voters would care about. No one in America, prosecutors said, not even a former president, is above the law."

Viswanatha and Gurman continue, "Instead, the four different cases against him have both boosted his…. bid for the White House — and paved the way for him to enjoy an unprecedented level of authority if he gets there."

After the High Court's immunity ruling, Justice Juan Merchan moved Trump's sentencing date from July 11 to September.

"While a Manhattan jury in May found Trump guilty on 34 counts in the hush money case, jailtime seems unlikely," Viswanatha and Gurman note. "His other cases have been delayed and likely curtailed in court. Instead of turning off voters with their detailed descriptions of misconduct, the prosecutions rallied supporters to his side."

The reporters point out that Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' sweeping election interference/RICO case against Trump and a long list of allies has been "put on hold amid revelations that she had a romantic relationship with the lawyer she had selected as her deputy."

Former Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore sees a parallel between Trump's legal problems and those of the late mobster John Gotti.

Parlatore told the Journal, "What was the mystique of John Gotti? He kept beating the government.”

Read the Wall Street Journal's full report at this link (subscription required).

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